


This is how it feels to take a fall

by the_second_best



Category: One Direction
Genre: 500 Days of Summer AU, AU, But the events in chronological order ×, Harry and Louis - Freeform, Harry is a dreamer, M/M, Pining, a little bit of angst, larry stylinson - Freeform, one direction - Freeform
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-03-15
Updated: 2014-03-23
Packaged: 2018-01-15 20:13:12
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,883
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1317742
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/the_second_best/pseuds/the_second_best
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Louis Tomlinson is just like any other boy you would meet on your walk through a park, or someone you would meet while waiting in line for a coffee.<br/>Height, average. Weight, average. Shoe Size, below average. For all intents and purposes, Louis Tomlinson, just another guy. Except he wasn’t. </p><p>For Harry styles to find it now in a city of 400,000 offices, 100,000 commercial buildings and 8,308,369 people…<br/>well that could only be explained by one thing: Fate. </p><p>An AU, loosely based on 500 days of Summer.<br/>500 days of Summer is my favourite movie, Larry is my otp. So why not both? Yaay.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Prologue: Fate

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer: I own nothing. Not even the plot since it is based on a movie. But if we look at this from a Philosophical angle, nobody owns anything.  
> Title from Icarus | Bastille 
> 
>  
> 
> A/N: Hi :) This is a lovechild of my obsession for Larry and 500 days of Summer. Hope you enjoy. In case anyone wanted to know, I'll post the next chapter on next Sunday. Thank you. Apologies for all the errors.

This is the story of two boys. 

Harry styles of Holmes Chapel, Cheshire grew up believing that, he would never truly be happy until the day he met “the one”. This belief stemmed from early exposure to sad British Indie music and the total misreading of the film ‘Love Actually.’

Louis Tomlinson of Doncaster did not share this belief. Since the disintegration of his parent’s marriage, he’d only loved two things. The first was his football which his dad sent to him on his tenth birthday. The second was how easily he could set it on fire in his backyard after one year, and feel nothing. 

Harry meets Louis on July 23.

He knows almost immediately Louis is who he’s been searching for. 

This is the story of boy meets boy, but you should know upfront that this is not a perfect love story.  
***  
Harry drew pointless things distractedly on the notepad before him, made a seesaw with his pencil and eraser, stared at Niall, for more than two minutes, who was standing in front of the round table talking his heart out about some bizarre ‘other mother’s day’. But this crap of a meeting doesn't look like ending any time soon. There are five more presentations. Harry slouched further into his chair.

Niall then dramatically flipped the current page, which was on display on the presentation board, to reveal a picture of two men holding a baby, waited an even more dramatic second and proclaimed “The other mother’s day everyone” and winked at Harry.  
Harry would have asked ‘what the fuck’ if it was only Niall and him instead of his boss and 17 other colleagues, but then that bastard of a leprechaun winked at him like he know some secret that nobody else know about, (he actually know a secret about Harry (Harry’s attracted to the male gender) that only Zayn, Gemma and he knows), Harry rolled his eyes. But why would he blink at Harry while showing a picture of two men with a baby? Oh… 

Harry glared at Niall, who went back to his seat, and started dismantling the seesaw he made. Matt elbowed him sharply and the eraser he was holding did a somersault and landed on the floor. When he looked up, Simon, his boss was looking at him expectantly.   
“Um..Sorry?” He asked innocently.  
“I asked, what do you think about Niall’s idea? Could you write some prototypes for it?”

“Erm…” Someone who was not in the frame till now came into Harry’s vision. The first thing that caught his eyes was the chestnut hair of that someone, whose head was slightly lowered to talk to Simon. He was wearing a white button up and turquoise chinos. Who even wear that to an office? Harry scoffed internally.   
Then the chestnut hair man raised his head and stood straight, and Harry’s inner organs did a somersault just like his eraser did earlier, because damn that guy was the undiscovered synonym of ‘Beauty’. He used to think that this office was pretty much made for veterans and boring people like 52 year old Sarah, 48 year old Thomas, the other veterans around here and for plain old lads like him and Niall. If this guy is a new addition to this office, Harry will have to rewrite that thought. 

Simon stood up from his seat before Harry could decipher further about the boy who was standing there with his eyebrows slightly quirked up. “Uh.. Everyone, this is Louis, my new assistant. Louis just moved here from…“   
“Doncaster.” 

His voice sent shivers down Harry’s spine. 

Simon smiled at the boy (What… could Simon smile?), “Right Doncaster, right.” He smiled some more, “Everyone, this is Louis, Louis everyone.”   
Harry might have imagined, but he swears to himself that Louis’ eyes lingered when he looked at him while giving everyone the customary glance, that is customary when someone else give them an introduction.   
“Excuse me, I have to take a call” Simon left the meeting leaving his new assistant behind.

Louis made eye contact again before taking the pen that Simon forgot to take, then again with a slight smirk this time before turning around and leaving, showing his perfect backside. See, Harry usually doesn't do objectification. He’s all about personality, he is the president of ‘Against Objectifying People Committee’ but if he thought, bloody hell that boy has a perfect arse, it was for the first time.  
***  
Louis Tomlinson is just like any other boy you would meet on your walk through a park, or someone you would meet while waiting in line for a coffee. Height, average. Weight, average. Shoe Size, below average. For all intents and purposes, Louis Tomlinson, just another guy, except he wasn’t. 

Proof, in 2007, Louis quoted The Arctic Monkeys, “Whatever people say I am, that’s what I’m not” the name of their first album, in his high school yearbook. This caused a spike in sales of the said album in Doncaster, which continues to puzzle industry analysts. Louis’ employment at the Milkshake City during his UNI brought a 212% of revenue to them. Every flats Louis rented was offered at an average rate of 9.2% below market value. And his round-trip commute to work… average 18.4 double takes per day. It was a rare quality, this “Louis effect”. Rare, and yet something every post adolescent female and male has encountered at least once in their lives. 

For Harry styles to find it now in a city of 400,000 offices, 100,000 commercial buildings and 8,308,369 people… well that could only be explained by one thing: Fate.


	2. Mixed Signals & how to dodge it

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thanks for reading :)  
> Apologies for the mistake.

Harry twirled in front of his full length mirror like a dog chasing its own tail for the fourth time. Instead of the usual fringe, he took more than ten minutes to style his hair into a poorly made quiff, which felt like it would fall down any minute.

“What the fuck are you doing here?”  
Harry jumped at the sudden outburst of voice from his doorway. “Jesus Niall this is the third time in this week you are scaring me with that nasty voice of yours.”

“Don’t care.” Niall grabbed a notepad from the table and put it inside Harry’s messenger bag. “You’ve two minutes to get your skinny ass out of this house. Or both of us will be skinned by Simon.” He took the messenger bag from the table and elbowed his way to look in the mirror pushing Harry to a side. “What is it taking you so much time today anyway? Got someone to impress?”  
Harry rolled his eyes and elbowed him muttering “Fuck off.”

Harry and Niall live in the same block but in two different flats, Niall two storeys down from Harry’s. But that ‘eternal hunger of the endless tummy’ comes to Harry’s flat every morning in the weekdays because Harry makes decent breakfast. Then they will together take a bus from there to the office.  
Niall teased him the whole way to the office about the quiff, which decided to take a rest from standing upright as soon as the wind hit Harry’s hair. A certain new assistant don’t have the luck to admire Harry’s new look. Harry sighed and ran his fingers through his unruly curls to swoop it backwards. 

 

The first thing Harry did after dumping the bag on his desk was look in the direction of a cabin in front of Simon’s office. It was just a quick glance, and the cabin was right in the direction of Harry’s right eye, how convenient. Louis was there with the receiver of the phone between his shoulder and ear, with a stack of paper in his hand. He looked hot as hell in that light blue button up with his lower lip caught in between his sharp little teeth.   
Fuck. Harry quickly averted his eyes and scribbled the ‘to do list’ in a post it note. He is not going to fall back in his work because of some hot assistant who is not even his assistant. But one quicker glance is not going to kill anybody. Harry glued his to do list in the corner of his desktop and carefully raised his head in Louis direction. His heart skipped a beat when he saw Louis looking at him. Louis was the first to look down, busying himself with some papers in front of him. Harry felt his cheeks flaming and when he looked straight Niall was standing there with a smirk on his face. 

For lunch Harry and Niall usually goes to a restaurant where they meet up with Zayn who works as a programmer in a software development company across the street. He and his girlfriend Perrie lives together two blocks away from Harry and Niall’s. 

Zayn pushed the door open and when he saw Harry and Niall in their usual booth on the end of the room he waved his hand and walked towards them like a runway model. When Niall saw Zayn for the first time before four years, he thought Zayn was lying about his job. For one full week he refused to believe that Zayn was a programmer, instead kept on saying to Harry that he’s a model until Zayn took them to his previous office canteen one afternoon for lunch. Harry teased Niall for a month about his not so subtle crush on Zayn. Then they found out that Zayn and his girlfriend Perrie has been together from the day they were on nappies and Niall’s crush died tragically.

The moment Zayn took his seat in their booth the bell on the door jingled acknowledging another customer. When the new customer opened the door Harry’s whole body woke up from the lazy afternoon trance. It was Louis; he went straight to the counter to order his lunch and took a seat on the first table. Then Harry heard Niall saying his name.  
“What did you say about me?” Harry asked while pouring some water into a glass while looking at Louis who was reading the menu that was on the table.   
“I was saying Zayn that Harold over here is having a rather intense crush on Simon’s new assistant”  
“Noooo..” Harry looked at Niall like he cheated him. “I don’t… I don’t have a crush on anyone… What are you talking about…Especially on Louis…No.”  
“How eloquent… I’m on your side Haz” Zayn said with a fond smile on his face “Since you took this much effort to deny that” and then waggled his eyebrows. Niall highfived Zayn. “That’s the guy our Harry is crushing on. He even made his hair into a quiff to impress him.” Niall pointed his hand on Louis direction and Zayn turned his head around. Harry harrumphed and prayed to the Gods above to help him to vanish the blush off, which was creeping up his neck. 

Louis chose the exact moment to look up at their direction. Zayn and Niall fell silent and Harry locked his eyes with the bluest eyes he has ever seen in his entire existence. The butterflies in his stomach transformed into fire leaving Harry unable to take his eyes off of the boy sitting across him. They broke their staring contest when Harry heard his name being called from the counter. 

He looked at the two other people in his booth who were looking at him with shit eating grins. When he stood up from his seat Niall pulled on the cuff of his shirt with a serious face.   
“What?” Harry asked.   
“Please do not fuck him on your way to the counter” Zayn and Niall broke into hysterics. Harry whacked Niall on the head and glared at Zayn.  
So Harry may have to walk past Louis’ table to go to the counter to fetch his and those wankers’ lunch, but he can totally do it as cool as he wants it to be. He will say hi to Louis oh his way and they’ll become friends and from the next day onwards they will eat lunch together and then they will get to know each other…then they’ll go on dates… woah woah waoh stop right there Harry, he shook his head and slowly walked to the counter. He cursed his decision on claiming the farthest booth from the counter as theirs when they first came to this restaurant.   
On Harry’s whole walk to the counter Louis was reading the menu like his life depended on it. He didn’t even look up when Harry tripped on his own leg slightly.

 

“Can you believe this?” Harry could barely contain his disbelief when he reached their table with the lunch they ordered.  
“Believe what?” Zayn asked while taking his food from the tray.  
“He didn’t look at me Zayn.” Harry said incredulously.  
“who? Louis? I thought you were not interested in him.” Niall said munching on a chip.   
“Shut up Ni. I didn’t say anything to you. But like… we are working in the same office for Godsake and that guy didn’t even spare a glance at me.” Harry took a sip from his drink looking at Louis who stood up to take his lunch without looking at them like he forgot altogether that five minutes ago he was staring at Harry.   
“Zayn can you do a favour for our little Harry?” Harry looked at Niall sceptically.  
“Yup”  
“Change your seat with Harry before he pops a boner. This eyefucking is getting intense.” Harry turned his face slowly towards the Irish bastard flaring his nose who was casually having a bite of his burger like he didn’t say anything. Harry stood up and sat on the other side of the booth squishing a sniggering Zayn to the wall while kicking Niall repeatedly on the shin.

For the rest of the lunch he purposefully ignored the part of his brain which screamed ‘turn around’.   
In the afternoon session Harry went upstairs to the creative room in their office to work on some wedding anniversary cards and came downstairs only after five thirty. By the time half of the office had gone home… including Louis. Niall was there chatting with Matt. 

“Hey Haz… Comere” Niall yelled from the other side of the office.   
When Harry reached Matt’s cabin from where the Irish lad called him, Niall was standing leaning on the cabin talking to Matt about something seriously.   
“Whassup Ni” Harry asked while hugging Niall from behind and putting his head on Niall’s shoulder.  
“Nothing… Heard some stuff about Louis.”   
Harry stopped swaying and asked without showing the enthusiasm outside. “What stuff?”  
“I heard he is an asshole.” Matt said in his high pitch voice. Harry shot his eyebrows up. “I tried to talk to him in the copy room and he just nodded along, didn’t even look at my direction.”  
Niall looked at Harry knowingly. 

On their way back home Harry was silent, looking outside the window of the bus. Niall nudged him and Harry looked away from the window to look at Niall. “Haz… Um…”   
“Spit it Ni…”  
“Um… I don’t think that Louis guy is good for you. That guy has trouble written on his forehead.”  
Instead of getting irritated he felt his heart warming with fondness for his best friend. “Don’t worry, I’m over him. He is such a jerk anyway.”   
***

The next day Niall called in sick because in his own words he didn’t feel like doing any work today. He made Harry call Simon early in the morning to tell him that Niall is suffering from a very bad case of food poison while Niall curled up in Harry’s sofa with a bucket of dessert in his hand smiling.   
Harry plugged his ears with the headphone when he left home.

He was about to close the lift door when someone came running into it. It was Louis, and Harry felt the butterflies again, but this time they fluttered like they were dying, weak and barely recognizable. May be because of the way Louis treated him yesterday or because of the not so impressive stories he heard about the guy from others. Anyway he is not going to pay attention to Louis even if how hot he looked in that grey jumper and skin tight jean-wait did he say anything?   
Harry looked at Louis who was mouthing something. Harry said ‘Hi’ with a small wave of his hand while mentally shepherding the herd of butterflies which got resurrected in a second. Then Louis said something again. OH MY GOD LOUIS IS SERIOUSLY TALKING TO ME. Harry casually pulled his headset down and raised his eyebrows mentally praying to not make him look cocky.   
“I said I love Bombay Bicycle Club. You know… you’re listening to it” The sweet voice said pointing his dainty forefinger to the headphone hanging on Harry’s neck, through which the tinny sound of ‘Light Out, Words gone’ filled the silent lift. Harry looked at the boy before him in surprise.   
“You… you love Bombay Bicycle Club?”   
“Yes I love them…” Then he sang “Keep your old and wasted words… My heart is breaking like it hurts…”   
Harry stood there with his jaw dropped while Louis went out through the open door of the lift to their office.   
“Holy Shit.”


End file.
